Tally Grows for Impeachment / Moderates line up against Clinton

Louis Freedberg, Chronicle Washington Bureau

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, December 16, 1998

1998-12-16 04:00:00 PDT Washington -- In a day of unrelenting bad news for President Clinton, his campaign to fend off impeachment suffered a devastating setback yesterday when nearly a dozen more moderate Republicans joined the growing ranks of GOP lawmakers who want to remove him from office.

Clinton returned last night from a peacemaking trip to the Middle East, just 34 hours before the House is to begin debating articles of impeachment charging him with perjury, obstruction of justice and abuse of power. With time running out and support dwindling, he conferred with his aides on how to come up with a dramatic maneuver to avoid what now appears to be a near-certainty: becoming the second president in U.S. history to be impeached.

Representative Tom Campbell was among 10 moderate Republicans who declared their support for impeachment yesterday. In a crowded press conference in his Capitol Hill office, the South Bay Republican and former Stanford law professor said Clinton had "chosen not to rebut factual evidence" that he had committed perjury before a grand jury.

"If he chose not to tell the truth under those circumstances. I don't know whether I can trust him to tell the truth anywhere else," said Campbell.

The biggest blow came from Representative Jack Quinn, R-N.Y., who for weeks had said he would vote against impeachment. Yesterday, Quinn said he has changed his mind, the surest sign of Clinton's rapidly deteriorating position.

"The evidence shows the president provided false and misleading testimony to a grand jury," said Quinn. "After promising to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, he did just the opposite."

To save himself from political disaster, Clinton needs the support of at least 14 of the House's 228 Republicans, assuming the number of Democratic defectors does not expand beyond the three who have said they will vote against him.

But yesterday, not a single one of the nine undeclared Republicans who stepped forward said they would

vote against impeachment. Now, the arithmetic seems to be impossibly against Clinton. Only 18 Republicans so far have not indicated how they will vote -- and Clinton would have to win almost all of them over.

Among the options he is considering is whether to make a last minute, more explicit confession and apology. But most observers agree that it will require a move of extraordinary deftness to avert impeachment that even Clinton, with his legendary survival skills, may be unable to engineer.

'Even if he were to render an apology tomorrow, I think it would be too late," said Michael Forbes, R-N.Y., another Republican who came out yesterday in favor of impeachment.

Aides say the president will spend the day making phone calls and meeting with undecided lawmakers. He is expected to meet with Representative Christopher Shays, R- Conn., who once opposed impeachment but is now wavering. Last night, Shays held a town hall meeting to help him make a decision. "I believe the right vote is against impeachment," he said. "I just wish I felt more sure of that than I do."

White House strategists pleaded with Clinton's critics to read the president's 184-page defense of his attempts to conceal the details of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a 21-year-old White House intern.

"I certainly hope that every member, before they vote, will sit down and read the case in defense of the president," said White House senior adviser Paul Begala. "That's not asking too much."

For weeks, it has been unclear whether the Republican leadership wanted to impeach Clinton, despite the unanimous GOP vote on the Judiciary Committee to do so. But in recent days, it has become clear that Republican leaders, at least in the House, are now fully behind the impeachment strategy.

Most influential has been the position of Representative Bob Livingston, R-La., who will take over the House speakership from Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., in January. "He (Clinton) is not president by divine right; he is not king," said Livingston, who for weeks had taken a backseat stance on the issue. "The only way for him to face these charges is to face articles of impeachment."

Livingston's statement, along with what is likely to be a near unanimous Republican vote on impeachment, underscores just how polarized Congress has become.

"The partisan nature of this whole impeachment process has become even more clear with each member who steps up to the microphones to make their announcement," said White House spokesman Barry Toiv.

In other developments:

-- The House Judiciary Committee filed its final report summarizing the arguments for both sides on the impeachment inquiry. The document does not include any new evidence or allegations against Clinton, instead providing a forum for each side to outline a detailed defense or criticism of the four articles of impeachment.

The Republicans' introduction to the report frames the issue as a basic matter of the law: He should be punished for lying under oath in depositions to the Paula Jones sexual harassment suit, independent counsel Kenneth Starr's grand jury and in answers to 81 questions posed by the committee. The Republicans conclude that failing to impeach Clinton would be tantamount to violating the notion that all Americans should be treated equally under the law.

The Democratic dissent sticks to the long-running argument that even if the allegations against Clinton are true, they do not meet the constitutional standard for impeachment. The Democrats argue that using impeachment to punish a president for what they regard as personal misconduct would be tantamount to "decapitating the executive branch."

-- One Republican lawmaker attempted to revive the idea of a proposal that would censure Clinton instead of impeaching him, but it was quickly swatted away. The plan floated by Representative Michael Castle of Delaware would impose a $2 million fine in addition to censure, but Livingston reiterated his opposition to letting a censure resolution come up for a vote before the full House.

'It was very disheartening, in that his mind is really made up," said Smeal, who had urged Livingston to allow a vote to censure Clinton rather than impeach him. "The part that was even more troubling to me was his attitude toward the women's movement. For example, he immediately called us strident. That's a stereotype."

Livingston, for his part, told them that his own aging mother, a divorced working mother who had raised two children on her own in the 1950s, was as much a feminist as any of them, "and she's in favor of impeachment."

"I told them that I did not think they represented the views of all women," he said. "I felt it was very unusual for an ardent feminist to crusade under the banner of feminism and defend this president for these charges."

WHAT'S NEXT

TODAY

-- After reviewing the House Judiciary Committee's final report on the impeachment inquiry, Democrats and Republicans will hold caucuses to plot their final strategies.

TOMORROW

-- The House will reconvene at 7 a.m. PST, and begin debate on the four articles of impeachment. Lawmakers may begin voting. .

IMPEACHMENT COVERAGE

Television network coverage plans for tomorrow's scheduled debate and vote by the House on the four articles of impeachment passed by the Judiciary Committee (all times PST):